NOTE FROM SUSAN: I have left this comment up because, as irrelevant as it is, it makes me laugh.

I am training to be a PR without any theoretical knowledge whatsoever and this bit was good information. thank you – across the oceans…

must say, the comments make you look like a blogger version of Erin Brockovich. =)

All the best and wish me luck in my noble venture into the world of BR… (>_<)

I receive a lot of pitch emails, most I ignore, either because they are not relevant, or time passes and I was too busy doing something else. If someone asked me a serious question, or invited me onto their blog, I’d respond immediately.

To which, surprise to no one I’m sure, I call bullshit. Demographics, psychographics, ethnographics… reasonable starting points, but if that’s the only way a company intends to relate to its customer???

Not good enough. Not by a longshot.

Alas, I have to miss my first BlogHer.

The APCO survey is interesting – I need to look at it deeper, though, and hopefully they released the raw data (and I would like to know who they interviewed).

As companies and firms decide to reach out to bloggers, I think there needs to be a better decision making process before they attempt to go forward. For many companies, that includes working together (either for an entire campaign, or just consulting) with a blog marketing agency.

Of course, I’m personally invested in this since I run one, however, I think that if companies don’t want to spend the time reading blogs and getting to know them, there are other ways to do it, like seeking out the assistance of bloggers, particularly ones who do this for a living. We know that there’s more to the power of a blog than its traffic and technorati ranking.

There are things that folks can’t really get by just reading someone’s about page or their blog’s front page.

However it’s definitely a good start.

Again, I wish I could make it to BHB to see you present, but I look forward to seeing you this summer.

You are right — it is event planning 101 and the Jewish holidays, like Easter, are tough because they move around the calendar. Holidays that are “dated” like Christmas don’t pose the same problem.

That said, I personally don’t have any problem with scheduling an event over Passover. Just don’t invite Jewish moms to that particular event. Have one for them over Christmas

It’s all homework. And the mistakes are almost always dumb and avoidable. I’d like to see PR people institute the simple practice of checking a blog right before they send the email to reconfirm that it is an appropriate invite.

And yes I have seen a lot worse too. These just all hit over the same few days.